Online Casino News and Information

According to the New York Associated Press things are heating up in the northeast! They say the new casinos opening up will put a damper on Atlantic City, and Connecticut.

NEW YORK — Moody’s Investors Service said in a report on Tuesday that new casino openings in the Northeast were threatening the dominance of Atlantic City and Connecticut as gambling destinations.

“It may yet get worse for Atlantic City and Connecticut,” Moody’s ( MCO - news - people ) said, noting that the Northeast is expected to see significant growth of the number of gambling slots in the next five years. Moody’s said new venues in eastern Pennsylvania and the New York metropolitan area have already dragged down demand. More slots could soon come to Maryland, Moody’s said.

Don’t we wish all the other states would be fighting over casinos? Maybe if all goes well  they will be soon. As well as the online gambling sites.

Read the whole story!

Barney Frank’s Bill HR 2267 that would put an end to the UIGEA was set to be heard in July, but has been delayed until September. This delay is because he is head of the US House Financial Services Committee.

With this in mind, there are more pressing matters to be heard before this one, like today’s economy. Though this may be bad for the online casinos now, we have waited since 2006 and I think the wait will be worth it.

Mr. Frank’s sponsors has increased to thirty-five and growing, and the good news is they are some from both sides. Some have changed their minds since the law was passed in 2006. Could it be that we have been heard and they know we want to be able to play online casinos in our own homes? Some more believe that legalizing online gambling would be good for the US. We will have to wait and see!

It’s been awhile, but you should remember this situation very well, especially if you live in America. Gary Kaplan, the founder of the online sportsbook Betonsports,  and 10 other defendants were indicted 3 years ago in St. Louis for accepting sports wagers over the Internet and via phone, which was in direct violation of the age-old USA wire act which prohibits such activities.

Gary’s brother, Neil Scott Kaplan and sisters Lori Beth Kaplan Multz and Penelope Tucker have already pleaded guilty, along with Betonsports’ CEO, David Carruthers. Although not named, there are two other defendants that still haven’t “faced the music.”

Gary Kaplan faces many charges which include mail fraud and racketeering conspiracy. His trial is due to start on September 21st, and he has been held in jail without bail since being arrested in the Dominican Republic over 2 years ago.

The rest of the story…

The fight is on. Many people and quite a few big U.S. casinos would love to see internet gambling legalized. For the casinos, this would give them a much bigger market and an ability to reach out to people who never get a chance to travel to Las Vegas or Atlantic City. Not to mention the legions of young poker players who have grown up learning and honing their poker skills on the internet.

But not all is rosy on the gambling front. The American Gaming Association, which lobbies the federal lawmakers on gambling issues, has watched the legislation on the internet gambling issue and has been hotly divided on the issue for years.

Harrah’s Entertainment and the MGM Mirage, two of the larger members of the association, support legalization of internet gambling in some form.  However, there are many members who are opposed. They feel like internet gambling cannot be adequately controlled and could embarrass the industry. The end result of all this, is the association has taken a neutral stance on the issue.

Both sides throw up the stories of people bankrupting themselves at the casinos trying to strike it rich. Then there are the fears of people in their homes doing the same if internet gambling were legalized. This fear strikes terror into the hearts of politicians, regulators and the like.

 Read the whole story!

The times are getting exciting for online gambling. Everybody has something to say on the subject. On June 10, 2009, in a crackdown on illegal gambling and suspected money laundering, the bank accounts of some 27,000 online gamers were frozen by U.S. authorities. At the same time, the European Union accused the U.S. of violations of international trade rules by banning online gambling. The EU gaming outfits are claiming a $100 billion loss because of the U.S. ban. If this wasn’t enough, the Payments System Protection Act, HR 6870, which kind of decriminalizes online gambling, was approved by a House committee and will be heading back for a vote soon.

Steve Baldwin, Editor-in-Chief for Didit, a search engine marketing and media management company based in New York, made some calculations of how much money is at stake for the online search engines. The search engines, for years, have banned paid search ads. He made a list of 200 keywords for searches, and using Google’s keyword suggestion tool, which shows the approximate monthly keyword volume, ran the sampling for the month of April 2009. While his keyword list is small, some search marketers have keyword list hundreds of thousands of words long, it will give you a small, conservative idea of how much money is being lost by the search engines.

How much you ask?? In Google’s instance, the total comes to an approximate $115 million per year. Google has a 64.2 % slice of the search market. He states that the total for all the search engines is a whopping $180 million per year. Again, this is a very conservative estimate since his keyword sampling is so small.

With this kind of money at stake, you can be sure that both sides of the issue will be watching these developments very closely.

Source found here.

The European Union is definitely not dropping the ball when it comes to trying to get the USA to drop our stupid “ban”* on online gambling. Their main argument is that the 2006 ban, via the UIGEA, violates world trade agreeements.

The EU, as well as the WTO and many other organizations have been after the US to get the online gambling “ban”* dropped, but we all know full and well that Dubya spent more time at his ranch than in the Whitehouse, so he could have cared less if online gambling was regulated and legalized on the federal level…

It’s apparent that only Barney Frank and few other politicians actually have a clue and want the UIGEA repealed just as bad as us players do. We’re talking about billions of dollars being injected into the US economy, and that’s something we desperately need right now. The EU has stated that they will not file any legal action until they talk with Obama and his administration to try and get this resolved in a civil and amicable way for all parties involved.

Source

*The only thing that is banned is financial transactions going to and from bank accounts in the USA to online casinos..Online poker is NOT covered, and many banks have already stated that they have neither the manpower nor the financial means to enforce the UIGEA, so transactions are going through as normal, depending on your bank and their policies. Also, some states such as New York and Washington have specific laws against gambling online, so please check your state laws before attempting to gamble online, so that you know it is in fact legal to do so.

This will be an important day for what will happen to online gambling! This is the date for the Circuit Court of Appeals to make a decision on the case filed by iMEGA! iMEGA is The Interactive Media Entertainment and Gambling Association.

The case involves trying to revoke the highly profiled UIGEA Enforcement Act. The case says that the UIGEA goes against the U.S. Constitution.

The outcome can be either based on what the merits of the case are or there will be arguments made orally. iMEGA has arguments that the UIGEA is and I quote: “void for vagueness!” Right now the law allows many interpretations that are to vague, and lets the government have the authority to enforce the laws as they want.

The complete vagueness on the UIGEA Bill make it impossible for financial institutions and for banks to know what is and what is not law in Unlawful Gambling.

This could be the turning point for the Online Gambling Industry. Stay tuned for the news as it happens, and hope for the UIGEA to be overturned!

According to the Associated Press Connecticut’s two casinos in May reported that their revenue was down from last year but up more for the month of May 2009 than anytime this year.

The Foxwood’s Casinos which includes the MGM Grand says that May’s revenue was down from last May 2008 but the most it has been this year.

This is GREAT news for both the casinos! They both turned over 25% of their revenue to the state. Mohegan Sun gave the state $17.5 million, and Foxwoods gave the state over $15.6.

This shows that if the other states will tax and regulate online gambling how much money they could bring in for each state!

It’s about time someone came to their senses in Minnesota. If you haven’t been following this story, at the end of April, Minnesota sent out letters to numerous ISP’s demanding that they block 200 gambling-related domains from being accessed by residents of Minnesota. Since then, iMEGA stepped in and turned up the heat, and also told the ISP’s to ignore the order. From what I understand, none of the ISP’s complied.

Pat Garafolo, who initially introduced the bill, issued the announcement that Minnesota would be dropping any further actions in regards to blocking these domains, stating that the reason was because “the legal position was reconsidered.”

Now only if Steven Beshear or someone in his administration would have came to their senses long ago.. Maybe there’s still time?

Source

eCOGRA is continuing their plight to help protect online gamblers from rogue casinos; this time it comes in the form of them updating and improving their standards for online casino, poker and bingo affiliate programs to earn the eCOGRA “Affiliate Trust Seal.”

eCOGRA has been working with various affiliate managers to draft these new changes which are now in place. While this news is more interesting for affiliates, it also means that as a player, you’re being protected on even more fronts. If you ever run into a problem with an eCOGRA approved casino, you can rest assured that your issue will be resolved swiftly and fairly.

For the list of sites that are authorized and earned the eCOGRA seal, head on over to our eCOGRA Approved Casinos website, which is also an approved eCOGRA Reputable Portal.